Through the personal prismOrdinary people connected to some of 2011’s key events speak out‘The hospital looked like a battlefield’Tarun Mukherjee on saving people in“Though it was the first week of December, winter was yet to show its true colors in Kolkata. Something woke me up around 4 am, beforedropping off to sleep again, I switched on the television.News of the AMRI fire was all over.

Tarun Mukherjee saved many lives at Kolkata’s AMRI Hospital fire, December 8and I lent a helping hand.I decided to march along with the firemen. The hospitallooked like a battlefield.The floors were littered with broken glasses, clothes,medical equipment, fire extinguishers, oxygen cylinders,patient suits etc.Most of the people that we could rescue were in a semi-conscious stage. Carbon monoxide had almost engulfedtheir senses. We made stretchers out of cotton bedsheetsand ferried them out of the burning hole. This way, we car-ried about 35-odd people out safe. They were then put inambulances and transferred to other hospitals.I felt slightly better now. After all, all these people werealive and breathing.Little did I know what was in store. As we approached theother storeys, they looked like tombs. There was an eeriesilence. Corpses lay still on beds, oxygen masks, ventilator,other medical gadgets et al. They must have had painlessdeaths, I told myself.Most of the bodies had turned black by now and werebloated. Along with the firemen and other volunteers, Ibrought out about 55 bodies. Some of the kin of thedeceased were sobbing hysterically.My eyes moistened. But that was not the time to mourn.There were numerous other bodies inside. I turned aroundquickly and now reached the third storey with other res-cuers.The number of bodies that we found here were muchmore than we had expected.Some of the corpses were charred beyond recognition.Some police officers, who were part of the rescue team,offered me water. I drank a few drops, pulled myselftogether and resumed my ‘work’.I was at the site till 8.30 am. A sense of helplessness waseating me up. I wished I had been here earlier. Maybe Icould have rescued more people.As told to Indrani Mitra‘I looked at my left hand, which was bleeding profusely’Varsha Karia, a student, suffered injuries in the Mumbai blasts“Everyone remembers that day. There was a blast and everyone ran helter-skelter. Some said itsounded like a gas cylinder explosion; oth-ers said it sounded like a bomb should —loud and deafening. But I remember it dif-ferently.